Grasping Intellectual Opportunities with Excitement and Seriousness of Purpose

|Peter Boettke|

Reading through the discussion at Cato Unbound reminded me of when I tried to introduce myself to the readers of the Review of Austrian Economics, when I assumed the editorship in 1998. My editorial introduction was titled "Is There an Intellectual Market Niche for Austrian Economics?" In that, I argue that Austrian must shoulder the burden of argument and demonstrate that their effort to "dare to be different" has benefits that outweigh the cost. And I argue that there are unsolved puzzles and unanswered (and unasked) questions from core theory to applied areas, and I explicitly make reference to the distinction between theoretical areas of contestation and historical/empirical areas of contestation.

In that piece, I used two old JEL articles to motivate the discussion of the unsolved and the unanswered. I invite the readers to go back and read those articles and ask themselves even today whether the issues raised by Morgenstern (1972) and Robinson (1977) have been resolved satisfactorily in the broader literature of economics.

A few years later, as my 2001 SDAE Presidential Address, I tried to argue that the uniqueness of the modern Austrian school in economics can be found in the treatment of knowledge within economics. Since that time, the literature on unawareness as well as the further development of imperfect knowledge economics has progressed to such an extent that the treatment of knowledge in economics is no longer as "flat" as it was in the 1980s and 1990s with imperfect information economics. Still, the sort of epistemic points Hayek made about the market, and which Kirzner developed are not as appreciated as they should be in my opinion. But that is again a position which those of us who believe that must be willing to shoulder the burden of proof in argument.

Perhaps if I was to give the SDAE address in 2012 I would look back to an earlier paper on "Beyond Equilibrium Economics", though that paper is very much the effort of young graduate students themselves trying to sort out these issues (to be honest I am still trying to sort things out). Or, perhaps I would focus on the issue of endogeneous rule formation as I did in my 2011 Cuhel Lecture.

I am not sure. The only thing I am sure about is that economics and political economy should not be presented as a catechism, but as an invitation to inquiry. We should no doubt communicate to our students, and others, that core teachings of the discipline. But also expose our students to the unsolved puzzles and unanswered questions. To excite them about the intellectual possibilities that economic research opens to them. And to encourage them to grasp those opportunities with a sense of excitement and seriousness of purpose that befits scientific and scholarly endeavors. To the extent that the Austrian label encourages economists and political economists to view the world with such wonderment and gives them the intellectual tools to shoulder the burden of proof in argument it remains valuable to retain. But when the label closes off such wonderment, and labels produce a habit of using catch-phrases as short-hand for argument, then it is time to move on. Those of us who find the tradition of the Austrian school of economics worthy of our adherence must always be on guard against intellectual ossification, and instead encourage, as Mises put it in Human Action (p. 7) each generation of new thinkers to see economics as a living body of scientific thought that is constantly evolving and tackling those unsolved puzzles and unanswered questions.

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Let me suggest you have the burden of proof wrong, Pete .. and the most basic task of science is to make that so plain & so widely known that the math economists can no long pretend otherwise without scientific & professional embarrassment.

The burden on the "mainsteamers" is to do the impossible -- show us how they can possibly turn tautological math constructs into a causal explanatory enterprise.

Note well -- the mainsteamers had nothing but spectacular and constant failure in atttempting to show this -- a signal fact that t he whole of the scientific community and the whole of educated public the should be made well aware of it.

Pete is muddling and switching between two very different levels of inquiry.

1) Getting the global explanatory strategy of economics right -- getting the causal mechanism and story right, getting the function of the different parts in sound order, and getting rid of the massive conceptual pathology which still log-jams progress toward a non-pathological scientific endeavor.

2) Providing publish or perish 'normal science' work for career focused academics who would like to contribute something to our knowledge in some little corner of the grand beast which is academic economics.

Let's look at Darwinian biology.

The profession of academic biology excels at #2 listed above -- the grand explanatory framework of the science is well-enough achieved and the particular niches are well enough grounded within that framework and various other scientific frameworks that no one can go very wrong doing their publish or perish work advancing their careers.

But what about #1 ? Well, if you look close there are conceptual problems aplenty with #1, but fundamentally the big picture story is in order, only the details are a mess.

But who works on #1 ? Almost nobody, because the academic machine is designed to work on and advance #2 'normal science' puzzle solving, even when #2 puzzle solving in one particular niche or another is conceptually troubled in significant and fundamental ways. (Take a look at decade's worth of the journal Philosophy and Biology for a taste.)

The people who work on #1 within biology are typically are the older great men, Eldridge, Wilson, Dawkins, Mayr, Gould, guys like that, who are battling with other guys from rival 'normal science' niches within the Darwinian biology tent.

So the state of #1 is often in bad shape, because there is no non-risky was for a young bright scientists to work on that global project without fundamentally jeopardizing his chance at a career at all.

What the "mainline" tradition in economics has done right is #1 -- it's got the fundamental global explanatory strategy or picture right, the overall framework for causally explaining the global problem raising pattern of order that inspires our wonder and asks to be explained.

But there is little or no 'normal science' career opportunity for a scientists out to have a career in economics working on #1 or working to get the scientific community in economics to recognize and acknowledge its patently failed, conceptual ridiculous, and unworkable explanatory/causal grotesquery.

Darwin's explanatory achievement dwarfs that of any particular biological scientist working today on any particular normal science puzzle falling under Darwin's wider explanatory frame -- getting #1 right is far, far more of an explanatory achievement than is any small gain in the world of niche #2 normal science puzzle solving.

Biology is fortunate that it has fundamentally solved its #1 problem -- achieving a sound and powerful and conceptually coherent global explanatory framework.

Academic 'mainstream' economics HAS NOT DONE THIS.

Any little gain in any niche normal science #2 advance is overwhelmingly dwarfed by the massive gain in explanatory power and soundness which is possible if the profession of academics economics got its global explanatory/causal frame in order.

This massive explanatory gain is what the "mainline" / Austrian causal explanatory framework provides. This is a "public goods" gain -- there is no private goods path of self-interested scientific publish or perish career advancement path to achieving these gains.

The way to achieve these gains is to make the general public and the scientific community in particular well familiar with the signal failure of the 'mainstream' to provide anything but a massive pathology of scientific FAIL where a successful global explanatory causal frame is concerned.

Couldn't agree more, Pete. The profession has changed so much in recent years. Unawareness is a great example that, BTW, David H. Wolpert discussed at the Lake Louise workshop. We have an opportunity to return to the mainstream. As you say, however, we can't do that by repeating "the" "Austrian" catechism. If I am not willing to change my mind, why should my interlocutor be willing to change her mind? Open-mindedness is a two-way street. IMHO the Austrian tradition has better epistemics. It is our responsibility to make that claim evident to mainstream economists. The Austrian interpretation of the Great Recession is very much on the radar screen of mainstream economists. Now there's an opportunity to grasp with both hands! It's a good moment for "Austrian" ideas, and we should not waste it.

Well, as an anonymous twat without PhD, I couldn't agree more with the basic gist of this post. To be quite frank, the biggest danger to 'Austrian' economics is the ever-growing 'Austrian economics' online cult.

There is a dangerous tendency within the Austrian school, (I don't think you need me to tell you where it originates), to present Austrian economics as a set of conclusions to be eternally defended rather than a set of ideas to be extended or revised as a part of an open-ended research project.